First of all, i apologize if this is a repeat thread, i tried looking to the answer myself and couldn't find exactly what i was looking for.

When i first saw ICEnhancer in action i was blown away by the detail of everything and more so the real car models. I haven't had a computer that could run even the simplest of games in almost 2 years so i was out of luck and out of practice(with modding games). My friend informed me that installing ICE was incredibly easy and fast to do so i went into it thinking it was simply copying a few files here, adding a few there, nothing to serious...i was wrong hahaha. However, me and my "friend" no longer talk and i recently bought a very nice rig. I bought GTAIV for the sole purpose of running the ICEnhancer.

Im not completely ignorant to modding games at this level, i used to run and operate several l4d, l4d2, css, and tf2 servers. However i learned how to do that on my own and its been some time since i have done any of that and to put it nicely, im out of practice.

I followed the installation guide found on these threads, and was redirected to another page that shows how to get around steam. I installed GTAIV ver. 1.0.4 and the appropriate version of social club. Since it was a fresh install of GTA i started it up, signed in and all that nonsense, and then logged out. I followed the directions, all that stuff was done right. Now, when i started the game back up, just to make sure everything still worked, Social Club told me the game wasnt up to date(obviously) and that if i didn't update i couldnt save achievments. This i figured was fine since i play on steam and im not worried about those in this game anyway, or mutiplayer for that matter(and yes, i have auto update turned off in steam). The problem though is that games for windows live popped up and said that if i didnt update the game i couldnt save my progress. That is when i stopped playing with it and decided to take to the community.

1)If i install ICEnhancer, is there something that works around games for windows? Or am i really not going to be able to save my game? As much as i like ICE and what it does, it wouldnt be worth it if i couldnt save my game.

2) did i do something wrong? should i not have opened the game after installing the lower versions? Or did i not install something right? Is there a way to turn off games for windows or even social club since i wont be using them?

After that, i also noticed that car model are not a part of ICEnhancer. Am i right in understanding that it is a seprete mod that runs those, and that cars have to be added manually as well? Like i said, the only reason i bought this game again is because of ICE. the thought of building up a 6 star wanted level in a lambo allures me lol. So im going to go through with this one way or another.

3) how long, on average, would it take to install ICE, and the mod for cars(i know its on here, i saw it already and bookmarked it i just dont remember the name) and a bunch of car models to the game? Is there anything else i am missing in that regard?

Sorry for rambling guys, i have a tendency to do that :/ Thanks in advance for the help!!!!

This i figured was fine since i play on steam and im not worried about those in this game anyway, or mutiplayer for that matter(and yes, i have auto update turned off in steam). The problem though is that games for windows live popped up and said that if i didnt update the game i couldnt save my progress. That is when i stopped playing with it and decided to take to the community. best pizza san francisco

About the updating.. I also had that first time I played Gta 4 and just let it update (to 1.0.7.0.) most mods work for that patch too (and Icenhancer always has a beta version for it, which in my experience works just as good).

I don't know how to keep it at patch 1.0.4.0.

Now about Icenhancer, the downloading will take up the most tiime (last Icenhancer I downloaded was more then 4gb if I remember correctly). It's just a matter of replacing files (not installing anything). It's a graphics mod so yes it doesn't include cars (you'll have to download them seperately).

But please backup your game (after you've patched it) because mods in gta 4 replace default things (so you need a backup if you ever want to uninstall something). Icehancer is just a matter of replacing files, if you want to replace cars/weapons/player items you'll need OpenIV or SparkIV. These are programs to open up gta 4 files and replace the right items. I recommend using SparkIV to begin with

If you need any help on how to install those mods let me know, but I'll let you work on the first thing before moving on to the next